inhabitants of the western wilderness. The name of _buffalo_, however,
is not correct. The animal is the _bison_, and bears no resemblance
whatever to the buffalo proper; but as the hunters of the far west,
and, indeed, travellers generally, have adopted the misnomer, we bow
to the authority of custom and adopt it too.

Buffaloes roam in countless thousands all over the North American
prairies, from the Hudson Bay Territories, north of Canada, to the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

The advance of white men to the west has driven them to the prairies
between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, and has somewhat
diminished their numbers; but even thus diminished, they are still
innumerable in the more distant plains. Their colour is dark brown,
but it varies a good deal with the seasons. The hair or fur, from its
great length in winter and spring and exposure to the weather, turns
quite light; but when the winter coat is shed off, the new growth is
a beautiful dark brown, almost approaching to jet-black. In form the
buffalo somewhat resembles the ox, but its head and shoulders are much
larger, and are covered with a profusion of long shaggy hair which
adds greatly to the fierce aspect of the animal. It has a large hump
on the shoulder, and its fore-quarters are much larger, in proportion,
than the hind-quarters. The horns are short and thick, the hoofs are
cloven, and the tail is short, with a tuft of hair at the extremity.

It is scarcely possible to conceive a wilder or more ferocious and
terrible monster than a buffalo bull. He often grows to the enormous
weight of two thousand pounds. His lion-like mane falls in shaggy
confusion quite over his head and shoulders, down to the ground. When
he is wounded he becomes imbued with the spirit of a tiger: he stamps,